1. employment, pursuit, craft, métier. Occupation,business,profession,trade refer to the activity to which one regularly devotes oneself, especially one's regular work, or means of getting a living. Occupation is the general word: a pleasant or congenial occupation.Business especially suggests a commercial or mercantile occupation: the printing business.Profession implies an occupation requiring special knowledge and training in some field of science or learning: the profession of teaching.Trade suggests an occupation involving manual training and skill: one of the building trades.3. occupancy.

early 14c., "fact of holding or possessing;" mid-14c., "a being employed in something," also "a particular action," from Old French occupacion "pursuit, work, employment; occupancy, occupation" (12c.), from Latin occupationem (nominative occupatio) "a taking possession; business, employment," noun of action from past participle stem of occupare (see occupy). Meaning "employment, business in which one engages" is late 14c. That of "condition of being held and ruled by troops of another country" is from 1940.